Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

That is not correct. They went on to say:

Our laws will abolish AWAs ...

The now Deputy Prime Minister said on 2 May 2007:

We will be getting rid of Australian workplace agreements.

The Prime Minister, when he was the Leader of the Opposition, said statutory AWAs were, for Labor, ‘simply unacceptable’. He later went on to say:

We see no need whatsoever for individual statutory agreements.

The Australian public would be able to draw from that that there will be no individual agreements in workplaces across Australia beyond 2010 or, as the Policy implementation plan said, that 31 December 2012 would be the ‘last possible expiry date for all Work Choices AWAs’. The public thought that that meant that Labor’s policy was there would be no individual statutory agreements beyond 2010 or, most certainly, beyond 2012. But, in fact, evidence provided to the Senate inquiry has revealed that individual statutory agreements can continue indefinitely where the employer or the employee chooses not to terminate the agreement. These arrangements can continue indefinitely for AWAs and for Labor’s interim AWAs, the ITEAs. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister were at it again today in the House, refusing to acknowledge that, at the nominal expiry date of an individual statutory agreement—whether it is an AWA or one of Labor’s new interim AWAs—that agreement can continue. If the employee and the employer do not seek to terminate or to renegotiate it, it continues indefinitely—beyond 2010, beyond 2012 and into the future. The evidence that we got from an Acting Associate Secretary, Mr Pratt, of the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, should be highlighted to this House. Mr Pratt said:

In relation to the government’s intended new system, which will apply from January 2010, there will be no individual statutory agreements. There will be transitional agreements which still continue, but they are not agreements under the government’s new system.

The question was put to him:

Senator FISHER—If your definition of ‘new system’ is January 2010, you have indicated—unless you tell me that I have misunderstood—that it will be possible for parties to continue to work under legal AWAs and legal ITEAs beyond January 2010.

Mr Pratt—Certainly, but they will be remnants of the previous system.

Senator FISHER—Is there an end point? Let us go to that. Does the bill bring about a definitive end point for those agreements in date terms?

Mr Pratt—No, it does not.

(Time expired)

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